Influenster #CurelSkincare VoxBox

I was sent the #CurelSkincare VoxBox by influenster about a week ago and I already am totally in love with it. First of all if you don't know what influenster is, they are  a website that you join for free and connect your social media to, then based on your social media reach and the reviews you write on influenster and they send you boxes to review for free for your honest review. This is one of those boxes that I received.

So I received two items in this box. The shower wash and the spray moisturizer. This is an anti-itch formula to help with itchyness and dry skin. I used to have TERRIBLE itching on my legs, I mean bad. I would scratch and scratch and scratch until I would make my legs bleed and they would still itch! I couldn't win.

This is just one of the spots that I scratched into bleeding, and this is actually healing now. Using the body wash and the moisture spray has helped soooo much! I don't know if it's mostly the spray or the combo of both but I intend to keep using it for a nice long time. As soon as I used the spray I already felt instantly better. It relieves immediately and still helps with the long term. This is something I would for sure purchase after I use up what was sent to me for free and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Blossom Vox Box from Influenster

So a few weeks ago I received the Blossom Vox Box from Influenster. If you don't know what Influenster is they are a website that you can join for free and they select people for 'campaigns' to get boxes for free and give their reviews on the products. I will leave some links at the end of this post to Influenster if you are interested in joining as well as a link to my YouTube channel if you'd like to see that as well. So let's get started!

So the box they sent was called the Blossom Vox Box. It was very spring and healthy/natural oriented. Overall I liked the products allot, there were only a couple that I wasn't really a huge fan of.

 

The two snack products were Beanitos Chips and Bear Naked granola. The granola came in Sea Salt Caramel and Coconut Almond Curry. I'm honestly not a big granola fan anyway, but for granola these weren't bad. I took them to work for afternoon snacks and one of the little bags lasted me two days each so I feel like it would be a good value for the money, it's just not really for me. However the Beanitos were amazing! I got original and BBQ. I didn't get to try the BBQ because my husband got there first but he loved them and I loved the original. We don't even like beans! They can replace chips in my house for all I care they are great!

 I had one other food item and that was Nasoya's Pasta Zero. Really I should've taken some better pictures of this but I was so disgusted by it when I tried to eat it that I just threw it out. The pasta is in liquid when you open it so it's not dry and you have to rinse it off. Before it is rinsed it smells like playdoh. They saw you can eat it without cooking because it is already cooked but I don't see how. It was so chewy (and I even heated it!) and the taste was just not good. I didn't like this at all.

 I did like the airbrush legs by Sally Hansen but I do wish they had sent me a lighter color. As you can see from the before picture on the left I'm very pale and I was sent medium. The after picture is on the right. It's not too bad, it was a little splotchy and hard to get even. I feel like if I took a little more time it would be less spotty and if I had light instead of medium I think it would be better on me. I don't really have marks or inperfections on my legs which this claims to cover so I can't really speak to that but I do see how it could. I also like that this dried fairly quick.

 This eyeshadow crayon from NYC was a very pretty color but I did end up giving it away. It was very hard to blend so unless you are using it as a lid color it's too hard to work with. It does last forever (ok fine, just all day) like they claim though. I swatched this in my YouTube video, then took a shower and the swatch was still on my hand even after washing and washing my hair. I will probably buy a color I like more for my lid that't not so neutral because this really is a great product, just not the color for me.

 The last two items. Let's talk about the Hair Food shampoo first. It smells great for one thing and I believe it is safe for colored hair which is something I need. I think it works fine, it did feel a little heavy at first but my hair looked good after washing. I don't think I will like it more than my Paul Mitchell Tea Tree though so I probably will not be switching but not a bad product. The only complaint I have is that it's now 3 days later and I still can't work the pump! I can't get it to open up for the life of me, I must have spent 30 min just trying to get it open and finally gave up and just took the top off instead of pumping. Grrrr.....anyway.....The last thing was Australian Gold  lotion sunscreen. This was my favorite thing in this box! Again, I'm pale so I need to keep protected from the sun, but on top of that it doesn't smell or feel like sunscreen. It smells so good, I love it! And when you put in on it doesn't feel greasy at all, it's like a nice high end lotion. I've been using it and haven't burned so far so I'd say it's doing a great job!

As a whole I think this was a great box, there was only one thing I didn't like at all and just a couple that were something that is ok. Hopefully I keep getting these so I can share them with you guys and you should head over to sign up and get them too!

Influenster sign up: www.influenster.com/r/1099964

YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYSnK6lHNbvigokHCu0Hp8w

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March Ipsy Glam Bag: Floral Fantasy

       

My first Ipsy bag came this month! Who-hoo! If you don't know what Ipsy is it's a beauty subscription bag that is $10 a month and you get 4-5 beauty products along with this super cute make-up bag. Each month has a theme and this month was floral fantasy. I was actually worried because I had seen a bunch of people complaining about things they had received in previous months I wondered if I would be disappointed but I'm so happy with it!

So the first product was this sample size of Glow Oil Treatment for your hair. It can be used on wet or dry hair to add shine and hydrate the hair. I believe the full size retails for around $40. Even though it's just a sample size I think I can probably get a weeks worth of use from this. I used it in my hair wet and dry and I did like it. I think it helped some making my hair shine a little more and made it feel softer, but I don't think I would purchase it over Moroccan Oil.

 The next item was was this concealer brush from crown brush. It is very soft and I love the way it feels. I haven't really used it yet but I do love soft brushes, super awesome :)

This is a highlighter crayon in ivory lace by Chella. I had not heard of this brand before so I googled it and it looks like it retails for about $18. Look at that my bag already paid for itself!! It blends out perfectly. I love to use it for my brows and to highlight my cupid's bow. It's great.

When I saw this Pixi duo I was pretty excited. I had been wanting to try some of their products but hadn't really gotten around to it yet and I was not disappointed. These colors are so blendable and have a little shimmer which I just love! Anything with sparkle of any kind is perfect in my book. This is going to be one of my go-to looks this spring, I can tell.

Now the product I was most excited about, NYX! I love Nyx products soooo much!!! I didn't own any of their butter lipsticks yet and this one is just beautiful! They are so creamy and soft and the color is great! I believe these retail for maybe $5.99? Something like that. I wasn't able to find prices for the brush and the eyeshadow sorry! But overall I feel like this bag is a really great deal and I'm so excited to use these products! I did do a makeup look using everything I received that I will post below. I can't wait to get next months bag!

Such a nice soft spring look :) Let me know your thoughts!

Too Faced Haul

It's been too long since my last post! Oh no! But I do have reviews of my Too Faced Haul to make up for it!! A few weeks ago they had a sale on their website of 75% off of their vintage line so naturally, I had to pick it up. When it came in the mail I was so excited, I mean come on, just look at that packaging.

How pretty is this! I almost didn't want to open them, but of course if I don't open it I can't play with it, and where is the fun in that? I picked up a cream blush, three eyeshadows, two lip sticks and two lip glosses so lets jump right in. First up lets talk about the blush.

So this is actually and lip and cheek color but chances are I will mostly use it as a blush. It's called Sweet Pea (love it!) and is very creamy. It feels super smooth going on but a little bit does go a VERY long way, at least for me. I used a stippling brush to apply it to my cheeks and I love the color!

The picture just really doesn't do these eyeshadows justice which is too bad because they are beautiful. If you check out my instagram you can see a picture where I used the shadows and the cheek color. https://instagram.com/coffeeandlipsticknolt/p/0LSUi7BqtR/ Midnight mist is actually more of a black with purple mixed in which is very hard to see in this picture. The only thing I didn't like was how glittery the Frilly Lilly was which meant I ended up covered in glitter after doing my eyes. That is why I do my eyes before my face. Just saying. They do blend very well which is great, and these three together make an awesome smokey eye.

Forever my favorite, lip color! How awesome is the packaging by the way? Super cute right? Now the only thing I haven't used yet from this haul is Loganberry, which I actually forgot about until I was just typing this (How could I? I know, I have a problem....) However the Cinnamon Kiss looks awesome on its own AND under the glosses so I imagine Loganberry will too, and they feel so soft! The glosses are plumping glosses so they do have a tingly feel when applied. It's kind of like a minty tingle, you know what I mean? Sort of refreshing. Needless to say these were all totally worth buying, I will definitely pick up one of everything at their next sale! Until next time!

Contouring and Highlighting with Too Faced

The hot topic of every blog is contouring and contouring pallets, so why should I miss out on all the fun? I picked up Too Faced Cocoa Contour kit and I was so in love I wanted to share my thoughts with you guys! By the way, if you love the chocolate smell of their chocolate bars, this kit smells amazingly chocolaty! Yum!

So pretty right! Two contour shades and two highlight shades. It also comes with a super cute and wonderfully soft contour brush not in the picture because it is currently being washed. Do you wash your brushes weekly? You should! Anyway, besides smelling amazing, they also look amazing. I did some swatches but I'm pale so the highlight shades are a little hard to see on my skin.

I use the Dark Cocoa to carve out my contour. I place it under my cheek bones, around my forehead, and under my jawline. With Medium Cocoa I contour my nose and use it as a bronzer over the contour to help blend and to warm up my face a bit. Light Cocoa goes under my above the contour on my cheeks and T zone ( center of forehead, down the bridge of my nose, and chin) then I use Pop of Light on my cheekbones and just a little on my forehead. It almost matches my skin tone but it does give a nice sparkle when the light hits. I love how easy this whole kit is to blend. I was a little worried since I am so light skinned that the darker colors may be a problem but the blend out great and I love how it looks!

The pictures on the left are before contouring and the pictures on the right are after. Sorry for the brightness on some of the pictures, I didn't realize until after that my door made a much better backdrop. Well you live and learn right? I didn't contour my nose in this picture, still haven't decided if I like it better with or without yet, but I definitely like carving out my cheekbones and forehead with this. Have you tried this kit yet? What do you think?

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Eyeshadow primer matters!

Ok guys, so I wanted to talk about eye shadow primer and show you how much of a difference it can make so I wore primer on one eye and not on the other today. That's dedication. For real you guys, I went to work and everything. So anyway, I use Urban Decay Eye Primer Potion on a daily basis so naturally that is what I used on one eye only today. For my eye shadows I also used an Urban Decay shadow from the Ammo pallet. I wanted to make sure I used a good quality shadow so you could see that even with a high quality shadow, primer can still make all the difference in your look.

Right off the bat this morning I could tell the difference between the eye with and the eye without primer. The eye shadow went on much smoother and easier with the primer. I felt like I had to apply more shadow to the non-primer eye to get the same pigmentation as the primer eye. Does that make sense? Here is the picture from right after applying my eye shadow. To the left in the picture is the eye with primer and to the right is the eye without primer.

So you can see they started out looking the same. This was about 7 am in the morning. I took pictures on my lunch, about 1:30, and when I got home from work which is about 6 pm so this primer was really put to the test for almost ten hours.

See the difference? The top are the pictures from mid-day and the bottom are the pictures from the end of the day. Even mid-day you can see where the shadow is starting to crease and the oilyness (is that a word?....it is now) on my lid is starting to show through the shadow. By the end of the day the original color of the shadow is all but lost. Most of the color has settled into my crease (you can see the line) where the eye with primer is still going strong almost ten hours later! The blending color did seem to fade some but the look is still intact and looking good. Now I'm not saying you have to rush out and but Urban Decay's primer (but it's amazing so you really should) but primer should be in your everyday line-up. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments and don't forget to follow me to get updates on my blog post! Until next time!

Ulta Color Core Lipstick

Hello makeup minions! Let's talk lipstick. While at Ulta the other day I saw their Color Core lipsticks for $1.99 so I thought hey why not, let's give it a shot. If you haven't seen them before they look like a lipstick but all the color is in the center and it is surrounded by a lip balm. The idea is to give your lips color while providing a moisturizing balm at the same time. This is a great theory, there were things I liked and things I didn't like about this. I don't want to say I wore it all day because lets be honest it's a Sunday and I didn't even get ready until almost noon. That being said I did wear it for about 6 hours and I didn't even use my eos balm to get a true feel for the color core. (I'm sorry eos, I missed you!) Eos is like my comfort makeup......comfort makeup, is that a thing? Let's make it a thing, it sounds like it should be a future blog post......but like I was saying, comfort makeup, it was very hard to give up for the day. So here is what the product actually looks like, and I purchased mine in Sour Cherry:

Can you see how the color is in the center of the stick? Sorry if the quality of some of the pictures in this post are bad, I have a headache and I got to lazy to retake them.......so moving on. To start off putting it on is a little hard. With the color not being in the whole stick I felt a little like I was applying my lipstick blind and hoping it actually landed on my lip and it was very difficult to get into my cupids bow, but when I finally did make it happen the color was a very pretty pink. I definitely could tell the difference with the balm built in, my lips didn't dry out while I was wearing this HOWEVER....to keep the color and the moist balm feel I had to reapply this baby every 1-2 hours. I mean seriously, I have other things to do in my day besides constantly fixing my lipstick, you know? I also felt like I could feel the edges of my lips. Now some of you will read that and go ok.......you're crazy what on earth are you trying to say. But really, it's like having something just around the edges of your lip and you can feel it but you can't get rid of it. Not necessarily a bad feeling, but a strange one for sure.

I tried to get those side by side but clearly that is just not gonna happen today. The top picture is right after first applying in the morning and the bottom picture is shortly before taking it off. Between then I must have reapplied maybe four or five times, and that's only in a 6 hour period. My final opinion on this would be I will probably not repurchase. It did feel nice on my lips and the color is pretty I just feel like there is way to much maintenance involved for me. If you don't mind applying often you will love this, especially for $1.99.

If you love makeup as much as I do, follow me and get updates for my postings! Leave me a comment if you've tried this or thoughts you have and look for my next post, I'll be talking about/reviewing Urban Decay eyeshadow primer potion.

Beauty of make-up

Hello my lovely make-up minions! Somehow I went crazy and decided "Hey, I should start a beauty blog!", so here I am. This is crazy because I'm a terrible writer so I apologize now for the awkwardness of my blog. However I adore make-up so I must share it with the world! Since this is my first post I thought maybe I would start out with just looking at how each step in my morning routine makes a difference in my look for the day. Does that make sense? Sure it does....roll with it guys....

Sorry for the shocking photo but naturally I had to start this with a no make-up picture. So I always start off with my face and eyelid primers. For the face I used Smashbox Photo Finish Foundation Primer. Love that it has SPF 20, as you can tell I'm very pale and I don't tan, I burn so I'll take all the protection I can get. On my lids I use Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion (the anti-aging one) which I am OBSESSED with. I will do a post in the near future to show you the difference this eyelid primer makes. If my lips are really chapped I will exfoliate them with my E.L.F. lip exfoliater but that's not a daily thing. My next step is foundation and mascara. For foundation today I used Loreal True Match Lumi in color n1-2 and applied with my beauty blender (another thing I love!) and used Benefit Roller Lash on my upper lashes. Most wonderful mascara ever! Just saying.

Ok, so there is my foundation and mascara. Getting a little better right? Next step is eye brows! I get very sloppy applying my foundation which is why I do that before my brows, otherwise I may end up erasing everything I did with foundation. I got my brows waxed for the first time about two weeks ago (yay me!) and had her map out and fill in my brows with Benefit Brow Zings kit. I considered buying it but found that E.L.F. has a dupe so I ran to Target and bought that instead and that was a great $3 purchase you guys. Brilliant.

Just look at those sexy brows. Lovely. Next step is my favorite part, doing my eyeshadow! So I bought the Naked Basics pallet a while back and I pretty much use that pallet in every look I do. Everything. Seriously. In today's look I used the colors Naked 2 and Faint in my crease and on my lid I used Colourpop eyeshadows in colors Ibiza and Chipper. If you haven't heard of Colourpop you need to go there right now. For real, like now, they are amazing! All the shadows and lip products are only $5, they ship free over $30 and they are cruelty free! The pigmentation of these....omg don't even get me going, there will have to be a post about theses for sure. My go to liner right now has been Physicians Formula Eye Booster in ultra black. So easy to use.

Look at those colors! Just so pretty. Anyway, final step is finishing off my face with some contouring, highlighting, blush, concealer and lip color. Ok so thats allot for my last step I know but I was kinda running out of time before work and most of it is finishing off my face real quick. Right now for my concealer I'm using IT cosmetics Bye Bye Under Eye and their Hello Light Brightener as the highlighter and Ulta's Bronzer and blush in Splendor. For my lips I used Ulta's Lip Crayon in Bon Voyage. I really like shopping at Ulta, does it show?

Do you see how amazing those Colourpop shadows are? Ok sorry off topic (do I even have a topic? Popcorn brain at its finest) Make-up really can make such a difference in your look but the best difference it makes is making me happy. I love doing my make-up in the morning, I honestly go to bed thinking about what colors to wear the next day and how I should do my shadow. I can't be the only one right?....Ok maybe I have a problem but it's all good.

That about sums it up for my first blog post, if you are here reading this thank you so much for viewing and don't forget to subscribe! If you want to check out Colourpop head on over to www.colourpop.com, promise you will not regret it! Please comment and tell me what you think, until next time my minions!